The total amount of tracked crypto donations delivered to the Ukrainian government, military, and charity had topped $37 million at the time of writing.
Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Tether (USDT), and other cryptocurrencies are among them. The figures are also based on initiatives that have been tracked and do not take into consideration things like individual donation efforts.
The “Reserve fund of Ukraine,” which is backed by the country’s native cryptocurrency exchange, Kuna, appears to be the top beneficiary of crypto donations. According to the exchange’s official Telegram channel, it has raised over $13 million in crypto for Ukraine, primarily through BTC, ETH, and USDT.
Come Back Alive, a non-profit that claims to be assisting the Ukrainian Armed Forces in their resistance activities, has received over $7.2 million in Bitcoin donations to their wallet address. This includes money it received previously, albeit insignificantly, during the Donbas War, which began in 2014. Cointelegraph met with Ukrainian crypto aficionados who confirmed the charity’s validity.
Then there’s UkraineDAO, which is managed by Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot (a Russian female protest music band) and aims to sell a single nonfungible token, or NFT, flag to raise funds for Ukrainian civilian organizations. The highest bid for the NFT is currently $2.89 million USD.
In addition, advocates in the blockchain community have established the Unchain Fund to aid Ukraine. NEAR, Binance Coin (BNB), Binance USD (BUSD), and other altcoins are supported by the program. Since its inception, the fund has raised almost $1.5 million in cryptocurrency, the majority of which has come via NEAR token donations. Anna Tutova, a member of Unchain Fund and a well-known cryptocurrency socialite, told Cointelegraph:
“We raise money for medicine, evacuation and repair needs, food and clothes. We raise funds only in crypto and use multi-sig wallets to be completely transparent. Unchain fund is as well supported by Vitalik Buterin, Solana, Near, Celo foundation, Harmony, Polygon, Gnosis, Gitcoin and many more.”
Braiins, the world’s oldest mining pool, donated 10 BTC plus a share of its hash power to support Ukraine, among other notable actions. RELI3F, a Web3 humanitarian aid project, has also given 185 ETH to three crypto funds that support Ukraine thus far.
Crypto fans, on the other hand, are urging the Ukrainian government to accept donations in cryptocurrencies other than BTC, ETH, and USDT. Sunny Lu, Vechain’s co-founder and CEO, tweeted on Monday:
Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum and creator of Polkadot (DOT) and Kusama, wrote something similar around the same time:
Despite the fact that crypto fundraising efforts for Ukraine have gained a lot of support, people have taken to social media to caution one another to be cautious, to always double-check the validity of contribution links, and to be wary of scammers. In one case, a suspected con artist has been commenting on every post, claiming to be posting the official crypto address in exchange for assisting the Ukrainian government.
Cointelegraph was used as a source for this article.